Deck Highlight: Modern Polymorph

Modern Polymorph by StonePeanut

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Modern is home to no shortage of sweet combos. However, this one impresses me in its simplicity. You use Polymorph and Transmogrify (for our purposes, these are the same cards) on one of your own creatures. Since the only creature in your deck is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, you’ll hit it every time, leading to an easy win the following turn.

How do you get a body for Polymorph if you’re not playing any creatures? Therein lies the beauty. This deck uses Dwarven Mine alongside a mana base of all Mountains and nonbasics with the Mountain land type. This means that when you play your fourth land – conveniently, that’s exactly the turn you want to combo off – you can make it Dwarven Mine and generate a token to target with Polymorph. Specifically, all of your fetchlands can search for Dwarven Mine, Steam Vents or Raugrin Triome, making them both mana fixing and combo piece.

Token generation is built into the mana base. Emrakul need only wait around in your library. This means that Polymorph and Transmogrify represent one-card-combos that result in game wins. That’s extremely appealing!

So what’s the catch? Well, an opponent could Lightning Bolt your Dwarf in response to Polymorph in order to fizzle your combo. You can combat this with Teferi, Time Raveler, whose passive ability prevents the opponent from interacting. Alternatively, you can use Cloudform to generate a hexproof target. Both of these curve conveniently into a turn four Polymorph, making the whole strategy a well-oiled machine. 

As is the case with many strong combo decks, the rest is rounded out by generally strong cards that help you slow down the opponent or assemble your own combo. A curve of turn two Remand, turn three Teferi and turn four Polymorph is exactly what you want – and it’s not far-fetched at all. The sideboard is packed with potent hate cards like Leyline of Sanctity (let’s stop that Emrakul from dying to Liliana of the Veil) and Rest in Peace.

If you’re interested in a one-card-combo that can deliver easy wins while customizing the rest of your deck and sideboard against whatever you expect to face, Polymorph can do all of that.